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NEW YORK — Subway says an ingredient dubbed the “yoga mat chemical” will be entirely phased out of its bread by next week.

The disclosure comes as Subway has suffered from an onslaught of bad publicity since a food blogger petitioned the chain to remove the ingredient.

The ingredient, azodicarbonamide, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in food as a bleaching agent and dough conditioner. It can be found in a wide variety of products, including those served at McDonald’s, Burger King and Starbucks and breads sold in supermarkets. But its long, unfamiliar name has an unappetizing ring, and the petition became a flashpoint in part by noting that the chemical is also used to make yoga mats.

WILKES-BARRE, PA – An e-cigarette business and roofing business are moving into the movie theater complex in downtown Wilkes-Barre, leaving just one open corner space available for lease.

Jackson Township resident Allen Morrow plans to open Xhale Vapor Lounge and roofing business Green Rhino Builders in empty space on South Washington Street in City Centre next month.

Morrow said he is moving his office for his roofing business from Dallas to downtown Wilkes-Barre and will open the e-cigarette lounge in front. He became interested in e-cigarettes after switching to them from traditional cigarettes six months ago.

Morrow said e-cigarettes are safer and since he switched, he feels better and can breathe better. Some health organizations, however, have been pushing for the Food and Drug Administration to regulate e-cigarettes.

Editor’s note: And the last two paragraphs are about a heroin death in Pottstown! Wake up borough officials!!!!! Stop denying this problem exists! The man who robbed National Penn Bank on High Street was a heroin addict and high at the time. It’s not a “bump in the road” or a “perception problem” as your soon-to-be ex-mayor likes to tell people.

Heroin-related overdoses jumped nearly 250 percent between 2010 and 2012 in Philadelphia and, depending on how they are measured, slightly more in Montgomery County. In Kentucky, they quadrupled in just one year.

Experts say the culprit is actually prescription painkillers. Abuse of the expensive narcotics leads to tolerance – and cravings for more and more. Heroin is the cheap and more powerful alternative.

Experts point to a series of events that began when the Food and Drug Administration in 1997 proposed easing the way for advertising of prescription medications on broadcast television, which almost no other country does as freely. Industry spending on direct-to-consumer advertising rose tenfold in five years. Prescriptions written for opioid painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin soon rose more than 500 percent.

“As a culture, we are just very used to, ‘You have a problem, get a prescription,’ ” said Jay Unick, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Social work, who studies how public policies affect behavioral health outcomes.

Government officials, drug companies and medical experts, faced with outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs,” are pushing to speed up the approval of new antibiotics, a move that is raising safety concerns among some critics.

The need for new antibiotics is so urgent, supporters of an overhaul say, that lengthy studies involving hundreds or thousands of patients should be waived in favor of directly testing such drugs in very sick patients. Influential lawmakers have said they are prepared to support legislation that allows for faster testing.

The Health and Human Services Department last month announced an agreement under which it will pay $40 million to a major drug maker, GlaxoSmithKline, to help it develop medications to combat antibiotic resistance and biological agents that terrorists might use. Under the plan, the federal government could give the drug company as much as $200 million over the next five years.

“We are facing a huge crisis worldwide not having an antibiotics pipeline,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration. “It is bad now, and the infectious disease docs are frantic. But what is worse is the thought of where we will be five to 10 years from now.”

Come for a series of lessons and activities on various topics to help you care and feed your family a healthy diet on a limited budget. Learn how to prepare low-cost, quick meals. Develop new cooking and food safety skills. Try new nutritious foods. Participants of the Eat Smart Move More program will receive a certificate, cookbook, stretch band for exercising, food thermometer and tote bag upon completion.